$15,000 to spend on 1-5 cards...WWYD?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by raulus

And most of that return came during the pandemic. Prior to that point, your return was low to mid single digits on an annual basis.

Oh well.

[raulus]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Oh well.

Just for fun, I attempted to recreate the spreadsheet above. Basically you buy at the first price point, and then we calculate your return as if you had sold at the subsequent dates. So just for example, with the 51B Mantle, you buy in 2005, and then sell in either 2011, 2015, 2019, 2020, or 2022. Then I calculate your return as if you had sold at any one of those dates.

Because we often have selling costs, I also added in some math to calculate the return based on 0%, 10%, and 20% selling costs.

And the results are better than I expected, even before the pandemic. For the most part, you're looking at mid to high single digits through the mid to late teens, even when we're talking about the 20% selling cost mark. Which isn't bad! It's not amazing, but certainly not bad.

And if you factor in the pandemic, then they pretty much all get into double digits. For people who like to look at spreadsheets on screens, here's the details.

Note: Please ignore the fact that the first price point is negative - that's just part of the fun when calculating XIRRs with excel - the first number needs to be negative, since that's what you're spending to buy it. Please also ignore the fact that I'm not factoring in taxes. Since most investment products are evaluated based on pre-tax results, that seemed appropriate here as well.

[Peter_Spaeth]

What was the annual return of SPY in the same periods, can you add that in for comparison? At least for first to last dates.

[raulus]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

What was the annual return of SPY in the same periods, can you add that in for comparison? At least for first to last dates.

Welp!

I'm a bit hesitant to share the results, primarily because someone might draw some conclusions based on data that is selective and only representative for the window presented.

Additionally, the cardboard pieces presented here are not necessarily representative of the entire cardboard market, as these are hand-selected major pieces from HOF players. At the same time, if we're being honest, these cards are likely to have a fairly robust market in terms of trading volume, so the market is unlikely to be manipulated by spurious outliers, at least in general barring shenanigans. I also haven't dug into the data presented by the earlier poster to evaluate whether there was any cherry picking of cardboard data points that might influence the data here.

Part of the fun is that if you bought stocks in 2007, you were buying high, and it took a while to come back after the great recession. Another part of the fun is that stocks have performed poorly over the last 6 months, so your returns are down if you're selling today.

There were certainly some windows where stocks did better here. And some where they did worse than these specific cardboard pieces. Maybe in another decade, we can look back at people who bought cardboard in 2021 or 2022 and see how they did relative to investing in the market. We might very well get some different results considering the relative current strength in these markets.

Without further ado, here's another sweet spreadsheet to stare at on your screen, until you go cross-eyed.

[Peter_Spaeth]

I would bet a lot that a basket of higher graded elite prewar cards and Mays and Mantle rookies and 52 Topps would best the S&P 500 by significantly more. Yeah you can qualify it in a hundred ways but it's still pretty damn interesting, isn't it? Thank you for the charts btw.and to Charles for the first chart.

[raulus]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I would bet a lot that a basket of higher graded elite prewar cards and Mays and Mantle rookies and 52 Topps would best the S&P 500 by significantly more. Yeah you can qualify it in a hundred ways but it's still pretty damn interesting, isn't it? Thank you for the charts btw.and to Charles for the first chart.

Prego.

By all means, be my guest and bet on any cards you want. Hopefully they pay off for you.

I’ve got 25% of my assets tied up in cardboard right now, mostly due to the recent runup in cardboard values, and that’s already uncomfortably high for me, so I expect that percentage to decline in the coming years, simply through investing more in other asset classes relative to cardboard.

[Johnny630]

I’ve been investing through my employer's 457b plan 100% of my allocation in the S&P500 ETF Low-Cost Vanguard Fund since I was 23 in 2005. I’ve been increasing my contributions once or twice a year depending on if we get a cost of living or not. I maxed out said contributions this year at $20,500. If the government allows me to keep increasing I will until it’s maxed. I’ll stay fully invested 100% allocation into the S&P 500 until I’m 55. The last 7 years will be far more to safety. Will retire at 62. So far I’ve been very pleased with my returns.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Johnny630

I’ve been investing through my employer's 457b plan 100% of my allocation in the S&P500 ETF Low-Cost Vanguard Fund since I was 23 in 2005. I’ve been increasing my contributions once or twice a year depending on if we get a cost of living or not. I maxed out said contributions this year at $20,500. If the government allows me to keep increasing I will until it’s maxed. I’ll stay fully invested 100% allocation into the S&P 500 until I’m 55. The last 7 years will be far more to safety. Will retire at 62. So far I’ve been very pleased with my returns.

I think John Bogle, founder of Vanguard, and whose book really was an education and wake up call for me, would approve.

[Johnny630]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I think John Bogle, founder of Vanguard, and whose book really was an education and wake up call for me, would approve.

Yes he would!!